Almost everything major in Life of Pi is symbolic for something more rational; it is hard to believe that the carnivorous island would be any different. Before Pi discovered the island, he had a short time where he was almost lucid and he conversed with a man who the readers later recognize as the Cook. Pi does not realize the danger he is in at the time, until the cook enters his boat and Richard Parker kills him. It is at this moment when Pi says “Something in me died then that has never come back to life” (Martel255), which sounds very dramatic considering the horrors he has already survived, and made me wonder why this affected him so deeply. Immediately after this experience, in his first story Pi washes up on the island, leading to the conclusion that the island symbolizes cannibalism as Pi “Descends to a level of savagery” (Martel 197) and eats the cook, which explains why something “died” within him, considering his deeply religious morals and previously vegetarian lifestyle. The island in the story was invented to help Pi escape from the fact that he violated his religious code so deeply, but the whole island is infused with images connecting to the real story. It is full of the necessary food for Pi’s survival, but a deceased body could be considered food, given enough desperation. The pools on the island that “became vats of acid that digested the fish” (Martel 282) were Pi’s other version of the man’s digestive system, and the fish that he found floating on the island were the fish that the cook had eaten previously, which Pi found inside the man. Finally, he climbed the sole tree on the island, unwrapping the fruits to come across teeth, which seems grotesque but considering what it represents it is a much improved concept. Remembering that the Cook killed and ate both Pi’s mother and the sailor, the teeth that Pi found could have been indigestible remains from the man’s past kills that Pi discovered after peeling away the layers the insides of the man. The island story again comes from Pi’s religious background, connecting to the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of Knowledge, with the apple as the forbidden fruit, as Pi could see the dead corpse as a sort of “forbidden fruit” if he was starving. Once he tasted it and found the teeth, however, he realized what he was doing and saw that it could only lead to evil and death, so he quickly fled the island, or in reality that way of surviving, having faith that he could find a better way.
Almost everything major in Life of Pi is symbolic for something more rational; it is hard to believe that the carnivorous island would be any different. Before Pi discovered the island, he had a short time where he was almost lucid and he conversed with a man who the readers later recognize as the Cook. Pi does not realize the danger he is in at the time, until the cook enters his boat and Richard Parker kills him. It is at this moment when Pi says “Something in me died then that has never come back to life” (Martel255), which sounds very dramatic considering the horrors he has already survived, and made me wonder why this affected him so deeply. Immediately after this experience, in his first story Pi washes up on the island, leading to the conclusion that the island symbolizes cannibalism as Pi “Descends to a level of savagery” (Martel 197) and eats the cook, which explains why something “died” within him, considering his deeply religious morals and previously vegetarian lifestyle. The island in the story was invented to help Pi escape from the fact that he violated his religious code so deeply, but the whole island is infused with images connecting to the real story. It is full of the necessary food for Pi’s survival, but a deceased body could be considered food, given enough desperation. The pools on the island that “became vats of acid that digested the fish” (Martel 282) were Pi’s other version of the man’s digestive system, and the fish that he found floating on the island were the fish that the cook had eaten previously, which Pi found inside the man. Finally, he climbed the sole tree on the island, unwrapping the fruits to come across teeth, which seems grotesque but considering what it represents it is a much improved concept. Remembering that the Cook killed and ate both Pi’s mother and the sailor, the teeth that Pi found could have been indigestible remains from the man’s past kills that Pi discovered after peeling away the layers the insides of the man. The island story again comes from Pi’s religious background, connecting to the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of Knowledge, with the apple as the forbidden fruit, as Pi could see the dead corpse as a sort of “forbidden fruit” if he was starving. Once he tasted it and found the teeth, however, he realized what he was doing and saw that it could only lead to evil and death, so he quickly fled the island, or in reality that way of surviving, having faith that he could find a better way.